We All Fall Down
by StraddlingTheAtmosphere
Summary: This is what the world does to them. It prods and pushes them to their breaking points, until they fall. Dean/Castiel. Companion to Melfice's "Came Tumbling After."


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**Title: _We All Fall Down_**  
**Pairing: Dean/Castiel**  
**Characters: Dean, Castiel, Sam**  
**Rating: PG-13**  
**Spoilers: 5x18**  
**Word Count: 863**  
**Author's Note: Uh...I read that fic by Melfice called "Came Tumbling After" and I was like, "Um...shit. I need to write something now." And ended up writing a companion. Hopefully this doesn't offend her because I think she's brilliant. So, yeah. This work might make more sense if you read her story first. It's at http://www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/5949269/1/Came_Tumbling_After  
****Disclaimer: Supernatural isn't mine...Neither is the story idea.**  
**Summary: This is what the world does to them. It pushes and pushes them to their breaking points, until they fall.**

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The sweat is dripping down his face, running over the dried rivulets of previous liquids. His fingers scrabble against the sides of his wooden prison, no semblance of calm in the actions, mind finally catching up with body. Pinpricks of darkness—_darker _darkness than the one currently surrounding him—flitter at the edge of his eyelids, and instinctively Castiel's fighting against it, his human body not letting him submit.

He knows he's suffocating, he _knows_. He _needs _to fly, to get out and not be trapped, stifling in the body. The points of darkness enlarge, nearly obscuring the lighter darkness and now he is fighting two darknesses, one of oblivion and one of physicality. He feels his body's frantic protest start to weaken and somewhere in the back of his mind, Castiel knows that's not good.

He's too busy, at the moment, to examine that fact because he's fighting off sweet oblivion, wanting desperately to cave in but thinking, _knowing_ he can't.

The darkness is creeping, looming larger, suffocating him almost as intensely as the lack of oxygen, and the dark becomes ever darker, black as a demon's eyes, and suddenly there is light.

* * *

The creaking of breaking wood is gratifying, almost so much so that Dean nearly forgets to keep throwing his weight into the crowbar, the piece of steel bringing him one step closer to removing the barrier between the brothers and their angel.

There's a shatter, a gunshot crackle of snapping wood and the cover flies off, landing with a dry thump on the soft grass a few feet away, and Dean shoots up, trembling fingers outstretched to the figure revealed, the angel's name stuck high in his throat.

_Cas…_

Bloody fingers cradle the dark head and large hands grip his torso and pull him out, up, _free. _Together, they set the broken body down, the shaking fingers still gripping the dark, tousled hair and soothing the deep lines on the forehead.

"Cas, Cas, Cas," the murmuring like a saving mantra, a broken prayer seeped into his skin. Sam leaves his brother with the angel's head in his lap and moves to the grave, intending to cover it back up so they can leave the town without a trace of them being there, like they always do, but then he sees the runes, he _sees_ the bloody sides of the coffin and he _knows _what those symbols mean, knows what they've done to Castiel and the slow build of a dark simmering rage of the likes of which he hasn't felt in a long time begins, low and tumultuous in his gut.

Dean's hands press to a delicate fine-boned wrist willing a beat, a pulse, _anything. _He's pressing an ear to the angel's chest, listening, hoping, all the while muttering, "Cas, Cas, _please,_" a dying man's last prayer.

* * *

Cool, sweet, soft. He's floating, he's nothing.

Suddenly, Jimmy—no, _his—_body jerks and he feels. He _feels. _The aching relief of oxygen—O2, he thinks fleetingly—in his lungs.

He hears, he _hears _a rugged "Cas," and he knows that voice, he _knows _it, but it can't be because he was going to, supposed to, say yes, wasn't he? His body, his hands reach up blindly and grasp soft fabric, fingers curling through open button holes. Eyes open and there's overwhelming luminous green and long lashes glistening with barely-there tears.

"Dean," he chokes out, quiet wonderment in his tone, and something flashes in those green depths, something heavy and sharp and Castiel wants to flinch away, _should _flinch away, but then he's never been good at listening to the clues of his body.

He sits up a little, using the shirt—_Dean's _shirt, attached to _Dean's _chest, not Michael's—he's still gripping as leverage, which brings their faces close enough for him to count those wet eyelashes and distinguish every single freckle on his face and notice deep teeth marks on his lips. Without thinking, Castiel brushes a finger to those beautiful lips that he remade once upon a time, as if trying to make those worry marks disappear, and Dean's breath hitches, hot air drifting across his face. With a start, he realizes they're breathing in sync, trying to each breathe in the same air.

"Dean," he whispers, and this time it's like an apology, a soft tentative thing out in the open. Dean's eyes sharpen again and suddenly he's colliding against him, lips upon lips, body on body, and they're rolling in the grass, dewy against their backs, and it's all lips and tongues and teeth and skin and it's too much, _too much_, these feelings high and sharp and terrifying in their raw intensity.

And Sam watches them, feeling the unfamiliar, familiar fury drain and he picks up the shovel, hands curling around the recognizable feel of the handle, and digs, digs until it's all gone, until they can leave like they always do. They can leave with nothing, _nothing _to indicate they had ever been there. Nothing to show what happened, what's happening _now_, nothing to break the blessed ignorance of a child-like world, nothing to know to catch them as they inevitably all fall.

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**Review please!**


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